But a funny thing happened when
discussions and plans for resettling the so-called
Somali Bantu took place during Brownback`s time on
the committee at the beginning of the first Bush
administration.

Because of his enthusiasm for
refugee resettlement, the State Department had planned
to send a large group of
Somali Bantu to Kansas.

The Senator balked. "I never
requested 10,000 Bantu to be placed in Kansas" he
claimed in October 2001.

Telling Kansans that he
"contacted the Department of State asking them to not
resettle any Somali Bantu refugees in the state of
Kansas" he moaned on about the refugees` lack of
English, adding "they would not work well in Kansas."

But even if Kansas had taken the
entire tribe—which is already 30% larger than the
State Department`s original estimate of 10,000—the
state`s arriving immigrant-to-host population ratio
would still be less than the ratio for the U.S. as a
whole.

These patriots are particularly
skeptical of the federal refugee contractors and their
legislative henchmen in Congress, who dictate the terms
of the resettlement program.

At the time of the Somali Bantu
fiasco, there were suggestions that someone in the State
Department had deliberately embarrassed Senator
Brownback by sending him the whole tribe. (You want
refugees? We`ll show you refugees.)

The plan would have been
spectacularly successful—if the
Establishment media had reported on the Senator`s
response.

Instead, the story was ignored. TheNew York Times only reported

"refugee experts say that one United States community,which they did not name, [emphasis added]
has expressed misgivings about taking in the Somali
Bantu". [Somali
Bantu, Trapped in Kenya, Seek a Home, December 9,
2001, by Marc Lacey, (pay archive)]

That “community`s”
misgivings, or more accurately open revolt, carried the
day—because they were represented by Senator Brownback.

It is true that certain "refugee
experts" were refusing to talk, but that`s what we
have
rolodexes for. The event was widely known and
discussed in the refugee contractor industry and a
couple of phone calls should have brought the facts to
light.

Had the real story run in the
Times, perhaps would not have heard from the Senator
on this topic again. We might never have had to read
such imbecilities from Kristof as

"The
other day, Mr. Brownback told me enthusiastically about
his trip to northern
Uganda and urged me to write about
brutalities there. I was disoriented—I thought I was
the one who tried to get people to pay attention to
remote places."

U.S.
refugee resettlement contractors, whose main Senate
champion is still—you guessed it—Senator Brownback, have
gone so far as to refuse aid to refugees
overseas if it affects, even temporarily, their
lucrative resettlement contracts. (I`ll blog on this
shortly.)

Long ago they dropped out of
government programs where they would have been required
to put up their own resources to fulfill their mission.